It’s boom time for construction sector with the surging workload as much to do with infrastructure projects such as HS2 as it is with stalled Covid work commencing again. However, whilst this growth is extremely good news for the construction sector, it also brings with it a number of challenges; the need to bring in overseas people to meet the demand right now, while we build up the capacity of the UK workforce; the need to reach more young people to attract them into the industry; and the need to address our existing training routes that are not 100% fit for purpose.
Industry estimates suggest turnover is likely to increase by 33% and with it projects such as HS2 alone will require around some 400 or more staff and an estimated 600 operatives by the end of 2021/early 2022 in the specialist foundations market. Where are these people going to come from?
Obviously, some will come from the company’s existing employees, through general upskilling and internal career progression but this will only cover a small proportion of what is required. Typically, Federation of Piling Specialists’ (FPS) members recruit locally and send them to the two colleges delivering the FPS-backed piling apprenticeship – Trailblazer Scheme – but this route has undoubtedly been impacted by COVID and also does little to address the underlying issue of making geotechnical studies attractive. Upskilling current people, the training of existing people especially for key roles, is a viable option but the training route for rig operators needs addressing considerably if it is going to make a meaningful impact on numbers. Of course, an ‘up-skilled’ person also leaves behind a hole that needs plugging but with the ground-level pool of people looking to enter the sector also struggling, this route doesn’t address overall employment numbers. There is the option of bringing skilled people in from overseas, but since Brexit this is not working and needs addressing.
Clearly then one of the best options is to attract new people into the sector, and as already stated, many companies have long standing relationships with UK colleges and universities that are designed to attract new graduates. However, with individual companies doing their own thing it presents a fragmented and un-coordinated approach that doesn’t work when you’re confronted with a real need to recruit a lot of people in a short timeframe. The FPS’s Early Careers Group initiative is actively assisting in finding ways to attract new professional talent, and widening its reach further too, aiming at promoting the piling and geotechnical sectors as the rewarding careers they are, but this will not be an immediate fix. The same can be said of Ground Forum’s Mentoring Scheme, which is designed to attract under-represented groups into the industry – it will help but not immediately.
The ability to bring people in from overseas through Skilled visa or Intracompany transfer routes is an option, but I think it would be wrong to assume government has this ‘sorted’, even if the route is fulfilling some requirements. The Home Office rules are presently inflexible and prevent people coming in as site operatives or rig operatives, presumably to drive recruitment and training from within the UK. However, this effectively cuts off the overseas supply of labour to meet immediate demand. The FPS is working with Build UK to address this, but with limited success so far.
However, when you consider Site Operatives, HS2 demand alone will lead to a requirement for circa 250 more experienced operatives, 50 skilled rig operators, 75 experienced skilled operatives, 75 less-skilled operatives, 20 fitters and 30 skilled site supervisory staff. The challenge here will be their training as it will take a significant period of time to bring these candidates up to speed and for some roles such as rig operators, the current training options are not appropriate at all.
Let’s look at the issue of training piling rig operators – there is clearly much work to be done. For example, piling rigs are different from other site plant – to train and test skills you need to construct piles in the ground which you must do on live sites. The plant is not the same as a dumper, it is significantly higher tech, and its value can be anywhere between £750k to £2 million, so probably best the operators are demonstrably competent! The current plant training route (following industry practice) is that a plant operator must have a CPCS card before they operate a piece of plant on their sites. However, you can only receive a CPCS card when you have proved your competence off-site. How does this work for a piling rig when you can only really train on actual sites building actual piles?
There is the option to use modern simulator training equipment and create a workable formal route to qualification. The CITB NVQ Level 1 Training standard is in the process of being accredited and requires the operative to complete 100 hours training (minimum), pass the Level 1 Award in Simulation, pass a HS&E Test for operatives, and pass the relevant category CPCS Theory Test. A proposal has been made to the CPCS for a formal “Supervised Trainee Rig Operator” card, but this has been refused; saying that having a third category of card would cause confusion in the industry and that clients were already able to establish rules allowing supervised training on their sites if they wanted. Their view is that it is the responsibility of employers to manage and provide sufficient training of their operatives not the CPCS.
Surely it cannot be right that to train piling rig operators we have to find less well supervised sites on which to do it?
The challenges are many and the solutions are there but require a coordinated and a very proactive approach if we are going to are serious about tackling the skills shortage. Many of the proposed solutions require not only the support of clients but also that of government as we as an industry can no longer take a casual approach and hope it will somehow fix itself.
Now is the time for direct lobbying and action to address the reality of skills shortages as to ignore it will not only impact the growth the sector wants to enjoy, but also impacts the momentum and support the economy so badly needs post-COVID.
Author: Steve Hadley, Chair, Federation of Piling Specialists
